Alphabet Scavenger Hunts for Ages 4 to 14
Turn a Walk into an Observation Activity, a Poem, or a Memory Game
Feb 9, 2009
Try these scavenger hunts when you either go out for a walk along your favorite nature trail or while walking through your neighborhood. If you do this activity while on vacation, you could add these projects to your scrapbook about the trip. On a rainy or snowy day, do this indoors by looking around your house.
Older kids can do all of these activities on their own. Younger children who are developing their spelling skills will need some help from a parent or older sibling.
You will need a clipboard, pencil, and paper. If more than two or three kids are playing, decide if you want to work individually or in pairs. If you don’t have enough clipboards, you could cut apart a cereal box and write on the blank side of the cardboard.
The Word Art Hunt
Select one letter of the alphabet. On your walk, look for and list as many objects that you find starting with that letter. When you get home, find a simple coloring page on the Internet or draw the outline of one of the things you saw (so, draw a tree for T or a car for C). Don’t worry about adding many details to your drawing. Rewrite your list to fill the shape and create a piece of word art.
Rapid Letters
Again, select one letter of the alphabet and list as many things as you can find that start with that letter. Only this time, limit the time you have to look for objects. After five or ten minutes, switch to a different letter. Even if you find something that started with a letter you used earlier, you can’t go back to a letter after its time limit is up.
A Poem from A to Z
List the letters of the alphabet down a sheet of paper. As you find things that start with the different letters, write them on the appropriate line. When you get home, circle the favorite thing you found representing each letter (if you found more than one thing). Write a list poem that you title with the place you walked or the date.
The Memory Scavenger Hunt
Don’t write anything down during this walk. When you finish your walk, go through the letters of the alphabet and try to recall the things you saw that started with each letter.
What about Q and Z? What if you can’t find something that starts with every letter of the alphabet? Well, you can be creative and say that you saw a “quick rabbit” for Q. You could pull out a field guide to nature and look if anything you saw on your walk has a scientific name that starts with a hard-to-find letter. You can also skip a letter and realize that some letters are used more often than other letters.
How involved or complicated these projects get depends on your spelling ability. This is a fun way to work on your spelling skills without staring at a list of words you need to memorize. In fact, don’t think of these as spelling activities (because, really, they aren’t meant to be), but as observation games, memory challenges, and poems that get you looking at the world around you.
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